


may these words be the first to find your ears

by cheschi



Category: Six of Crows Series - Leigh Bardugo
Genre: Coda, F/M, Post-Canon, Post-Crooked Kingdom, parting gift but probably not what you have in mind
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-22
Updated: 2017-06-22
Packaged: 2018-11-17 04:39:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,042
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11268117
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cheschi/pseuds/cheschi
Summary: "There are a million things he wants to say, four million things he could say, thirty million things he does not.Stay. I could come with you. Kill everything that gets in your way. Stay safe.But they have never really needed words."Inej leaves him with a parting gift.





	may these words be the first to find your ears

**Author's Note:**

> title from light by sleeping at last

“ _In the darkness, two shadows, reaching through the hopeless, heavy dusk. Their hands meet, and light spills in a flood like a hundred golden urns pouring out of the sun._ ”

_ — The Song of Achilles _

 

Her hand is warm in his, her pulse beating a steady rhythm that hums with familiarity: crows on his window, pens tapping against their back-up plans, the synchronized _whoosh_ of unsheathing daggers and drawing out pistols. He's never been one for sentiment, but he is nothing if not a boy fond of patterns, whether they come in the form of locks he picks or the steady beat of Inej's heart thumping next to his, in a battle, as they fall asleep on the couch at his office at the Slat, as she stands next to him now.

The day is bright, and the sea is calm today, almost like it's completely unaware of the reckoning that is coming. He almost pities it. 

There are a million things he wants to say, four million things he could say, thirty million things he does not. _Stay. I could come with you. Kill everything that gets in your way. Stay safe._ But they have never really needed words. 

"So." Kaz starts. "I hear it's going to rain tomorrow."

Inej turns, eyes bright, and she gives him a small smile, the smallest quirk of her lips, and he's overcome with the urge to tuck the flyaway piece of hair behind her ear. "I'll be sure to take one of the parasols Nina left behind."

The Wraith has weathered worse storms. He's a confidence man; he knows a thing or two about sureness, and he's confident that her boat of the same name can handle more than a little bad weather on the seas.

"I have something for you," she says finally, and before he can reply, she is sprinting down the docks, feet lighter than air, to get something from Specht. 

When she returns, Inej sets down the box in front of him, and his eyebrows raise.

There's a sudden lurch and the box tips over, a smear of black rolling out of the container, and Kaz stares at the sight in front of him. The dog jumps up and down, his movements a little clumsy, and then he's barking and yapping, slobbering a puddle of drool on his new shoes. It's not like he _bought_ them, but still.

He simply looks at the dog for a good minute, face impassive, and Inej thinks it's the first time she's ever seen him speechless.

Inej doesn't go looking for it, but the Wraith can pinpoint the exact moment he notices it, the exact moment his features shift. With a start, Kaz realizes that the dog's gait is uneven. Three perfectly normal legs, and a left hind leg that is shorter than the others. _A cripple_.

Perhaps if it came from anyone else, it would be mockery and they'd be bleeding on the floor, but this is Inej. It's always going to be different with her, this much he knows.

"Wylan told me about Smeet's house," she offers as an explanation.

"I don't know what to say," he says flatly.

"You could start with thank you."

He gives her a look.

"After the war, the Fjerdans gave their old _drüskelles_  therapy wolves to help them get over what they saw during the war," she looks at the horizon. 

"Matthias told me that once," Inej says, and for a moment, a shadow passes over her face. The weight of loss hangs over them everyday. Some days it prods them like a gentle reminder; others, it feels like it's going to swallow them in a storm of the ghosts of their past.

"Talking trees and therapy wolves," he shakes his head, but there is no real bite to it. "Why am I not surprised."

She picks up the dog, and in the light of the morning sun catches on the metal tag around his neck, winking at him. _Dirtypaws_ , reads the tag. 

Kaz tries very hard to fight back a smile.

"He's yours," she says, hand outstretched, palm open. The _if_   _you want him_ , remains unsaid, but Kaz hears it anyway. That's how it goes between them, comfortable silence, navigating through the void and filling it with all the things they understand but don't necessarily need to say.

There's a pause, and with his free arm, he takes the dog from her. His bare hands slide over the fur, soft and warm, and there is no flash of the disease baring its teeth at him.

"This is the first time I've said goodbye to a place on my own," she says, and there it is. The water brings back memories for both of them. The feeling of Jordie's dead body under him and the water fighting to drown him. The rock of a ship and the theft of her freedom. That small white rage reaches at him from a pit inside him, trying to claw its way to the forefront of his mind, fists raised, pistols ready. He pushes it down. It's not his rage to feel, but perhaps it is his to help avenge. 

Dirtypaws looks up at him, eyes wide, and Kaz rubs his belly. The dog rolls over, and there is another inscription at the back of the tag. _Jordie_.

"Sometimes the only way to truly burn a bridge is to build a new one in its place," she says simply.

"One last Suli proverb before your departure?"

"No," she smiles, and something catches in his throat. "Just some Ghafa wisdom to tide you over until I return."

In the distance, the Wraith sails into the unknown, and Kaz watches it go. He stays until the ship is nothing more than a dot on the horizon, and he turns, cane in hand, tapping the boards of the pier. He imagines the creak of the boards is going to be what the weight of the bones of slavers and Barrel bosses is going to feel like under his feet.

"Come on, Jordie," he says, turning back to whistle at the dog, and Jordie runs to him, matching his pace step for step. "We have work to do."

Ketterdam doesn't wait, and neither will they.

**Author's Note:**

> god i'm such a cheeseball
> 
> inspired by that animated ad with the kid and the dog and of course, kaz rubbing cornelis smeet's dog's belly in CK (kaz brekker is totally a dog person ok)


End file.
